Namie Amuro - Sweet 19 Blues 22 July 1996
Sweet 19 Blues is Namie Amuro’s first studio album, uploaded by request for Shirokij.I feel like anyone reading this already knows Namie Amuro. She is like Ayumi Hamasaki or Utada Hikaru—you cannot listen to J-Pop and not come across solo artists who are that popular and have had that much success in the industry. I usually try to give some biographical information about each musician or band I upload, but forgive me for assuming everyone already knows Namie Amuro.So instead of talking about Amuro in general I want to talk about this album in particular, and specifically the connection to Tetsuya Komuro. Known to many by his initials TK, Komuro made a name for himself in the early 80’s as a member of the band TM Network. A decade later he was writing songs for a lot of up-and-coming pop artists: Namie Amuro, hitomi, Ami Suzuki, Ryouko Shinohara, and he was performing in the band Globe with his future wife Keiko Yamada and French DJ Marc Panther—and band that would later include Yoshiki from X Japan. The point I’m trying to make is simply this: Tetsuya Komuro was the mastermind of 90’s J-Pop. That is the time when I personally began listening to Japanese music and following the industry, and I remember thinking that everything TK touched turned to gold. Every top-selling J-Pop single or album seemed to involve him in some way. He knew how to scout the best talent, how to promote artists, how to write the music that people seemed to want the most—everything Tetsuya Komuro did in the 90’s made him look like a genius.I mention all of this because TK was the producer for Namie Amuro’s debut album, and arguably he worked more closely with her on it than he would any other album of hers. European-style dance and club music was becoming popular in Japan during the mid-90’s. In fact, in 1995 Namie Amuro was working together with Dave Rogers, an Italian producer and musician himself. Later in 1995 Amuro signed with Avex Trax, where TK was working, and he was quick to capitalize on both Amuro’s talent for that type of music and the general public’s demand for it. In the final four months of 1995 Namie Amuro produced two singles with TK, one of which sold over one-million copies. It was a huge commercial success and a sign of things to come. In 1996 the two worked together on Sweet 19 Blues, which was another huge hit. And the rest is history really.If you’re a Namie Amuro fan but you haven’t heard her earliest work then you really ought to check out this album. Sweet 19 Blues is a pop-dance album, without question, but personally I think the album has more variety than any album Namie Amuro would go on to release until Play in 2007. The album was wildly popular and became the best selling Japanese album of all time, until Utada Hikaru released First Love in 1999 which as of 2013 remains the best selling Japanese album ever. Takahiro Maeda worked on many of the lyrics for Sweet 19 Blues and the influences such as the mellow pop/rap style of songs like ‘Private’ represents the type of variety that would vanish from Amuro’s following albums.Hope you enjoy it Shirokij, and everybody else too! I’ve already picked out some albums to rip and upload over the weekend, but as always I’ll try to help with any requests, so feel free to ask.